johne1618, As you say, the vacuum expectation value of the Higgs field is v = 246 GeV. It serves to set the scale for the other particle masses induced by the Higgs, for example mW = ½vg where g is one of the weak coupling constants. But it's not the expectation value of the Hamiltonian. The Higgs term that appears in the Hamiltonian and Lagrangian is a quartic, V(φ) = μ2φ*φ + λ(φ*φ)2, where φ = v is the point at which V is a minimum. But regardless, we adjust the energy scale so that the energy of the vacuum at this point is zero.